U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee, on Wednesday ordered that two Jan. 6 defendants pardoned by President Donald Trump be fully refunded for the restitution and fines they previously paid in their criminal cases.
The decision marks a reversal from just months earlier, when Boasberg denied their request for reimbursement, Fox News reported.
In a memo order, Boasberg detailed the procedural history involving Cynthia Ballenger and her husband, Christopher Price. Both were convicted on misdemeanor charges tied to the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol and were required to pay several hundred dollars in assessment fees and restitution as part of their sentences.
The Obama appointee’s ruling effectively clears the way for the federal government to reimburse the pair in full, Fox noted.
The new decision results from an appeals court ruling and the timing of Trump’s pardon, which occurred while their case was under appeal in the D.C. Circuit. “Having viewed the question afresh, the court now agrees with the defendants,” Boasberg wrote in his ruling.
Both Ballenger and Price were in the midst of appealing their convictions when President Trump, at the start of his second term, issued a sweeping pardon covering roughly 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants, the Fox report noted.
In July, Boasberg initially denied their request to recover the $570 each had paid in restitution and associated fees.
The pair later asked the court to revisit that decision, leading to Wednesday’s ruling ordering that the funds be returned, the outlet said.
Boasberg, in his new memo order, pointed to the same legal precedent he cited in July, which holds that a pardon by itself does not entitle a defendant to reimbursement of fines, fees, or other property lost as a result of a conviction.
“By itself, defendants’ pardon therefore cannot unlock the retroactive return of their payments that they ask for here,” he wrote, emphasizing that this part of his earlier analysis remained unchanged.
Instead, he said the change in outcome rested on a different development: both Ballenger’s and Price’s cases were still pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit when Trump issued his pardon. That action “mooted their appeals,” Boasberg noted, leading the appellate court to vacate their convictions entirely — a circumstance that, he said, required the refunds to be issued, Fox reported.
“So even if defendants’ pardon does not entitle them to refunds, the resulting vacatur of their convictions might,” Boasberg wrote, noting further that it is true regardless of the reason for the vacatur. “In plain English, vacatur — unlike a pardon — ‘wholly nullifie[s]’ the vacated order and ‘wipes the slate clean.’”
The memo order takes an additional step by examining not only whether a court can theoretically order repayments for vacated convictions but also whether such actions are legally valid under the appropriations clause and in relation to sovereign immunity. Sovereign immunity protects the government from being sued without its consent, Fox added.
In his ruling, Boasberg concluded that the court has the authority to order the reimbursements.
“Because the court could order defendants to pay assessments and restitution, it can order those payments reversed,” he said. “Those are two sides of the same action, and sovereign immunity does not stand in the way.”
The new memo order is expected to be viewed as a victory by some of Trump’s allies. They have attempted to portray Boasberg and other judges, who have halted or obstructed some of Trump’s most significant initiatives, as rogue or “activist” judges.
Several Democrats in Congress strongly criticized Trump’s pardons earlier this year. The late ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Gerald Connolly, expressed his concerns in a letter, arguing that the pardons allowed participants in the January 6 riot to evade accountability for an estimated $2.7 billion in damages to the U.S. Capitol.
